


Curious Coincidences

by girlskylark



Series: Curious Creatures [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, And Lance has to figure out how to get him back, Apprentice Lance, Baker Hunk, Fun little oneshot, In which Keith is a cat, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, No Spoilers, POV Multiple, Rover returns, Sorcerer Keith, Sorcerer Lance, not really any spoilers, sorcery AU, therianthropy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2017-05-08
Packaged: 2018-09-08 09:50:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 15,860
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8839954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlskylark/pseuds/girlskylark
Summary: Oneshots based on the original book And Other Curious Creatures but there AREN'T ANY MAJOR SPOILERS.Lance and Hunk are going about their lives normally, though one fact remains the same: Keith's been missing for several days now. And Lance wants to know where the hell he's been, and why this black cat keeps bothering them.





	1. Chapter 1

Lance was entirely convinced that Keith just… disappeared every now and then.

It became a daily thing, trying to find Keith when Keith didn’t want to be found. For some strange reason, his mentor had a habit of avoiding his student—in other words, avoiding Lance. It probably had something to do with the fact that their last encounter ended with Lance nearly drowning the both of them in an artificial riptide. And it wasn’t all that difficult to tell that Keith was thoroughly terrified of the ocean at times. It was probably just dumb luck he ended up with a sorcery apprentice of the complete opposite elemental magick.

Elemental magick was… simple enough for Lance, especially after his magick block was dealt with. It was just difficult returning to the pseudo block Keith helped him put there, sort of like a damn that controlled the current of Lance’s over-the-top magick source. Lance _knew_ the block was fake, but he couldn’t convince his goddamn source that it was. And as such, he couldn’t break the block, even when simple things like telekinesis became difficult again.

Lance erupted into a groan, slumping over the table and on top of the books laid out before him. He heard Hunk pause in the kitchen, and turned his head to the side to find Hunk studying him warily. 

“Have _you_ seen Keith?” Lance asked glumly.

“Can’t say I have,” he confessed. “Last time I saw him was… about two days ago? I think?”

Yeah, that was about the length of time that passed since Lance nearly drowned Keith in a riptide. 

With a sigh, Lance pushed away from the table and wandered over to the kitchen. He slumped against Hunk, who was chopping vegetables up. Hunk hesitated in the midst of dicing an onion, but continued as Lance let out a dejected sigh, his cheek sliding against Hunk’s shoulder. 

“You think he’s mad at me?” he asked.

“What? No, he’s just naturally angry, isn’t he?” Hunk replied, shrugging lightly as he shifted to dip the cutting board over the wooden bowl beside him. As he scraped off the onions, Lance moved his head to Hunk’s back. He couldn’t get a proper resting spot when Hunk was moving around like that. 

He wrapped his arms around Hunk’s torso and gave him a squeeze before pulling away. “I’m gonna look around a bit more. Maybe he’s miraculously back at the shop, who knows,” he declared. It was the small, local shop that was previously owned by the village ‘crazy lady’, which was the term Lance liked to use. He supposed that defaulted to Keith being the village crazy sorcerer, being the one now in charge of the apothecary.

Hunk murmured in agreement, sniffling from the fumes of the onion. 

Lance pouted at Hunk when the big man rubbed the back of his hand against his eye. “I’m seriously not crying, you know it’s the onions.”

“I know these are emotional times Hunk…”

“Don’t laugh! _Laaance_ ,” he whined, setting the knife down to put both hands on his hips. Lance chuckled and returned, if only to kiss Hunk on the cheek. “Thanks for being oh-so sensitive about my emotional imbalance around onions.”

“Any time, hun,” Lance laughed, patting Hunk on the chest one last time before spinning back around and heading out of the house.

When Lance stepped out of the house, he found himself immediately tripped by something shin-height and fluffy. He shrieked, skittering around the door only to practically kick the thing on his way to the ground. He flipped onto his back with an _oof_! that sent Hunk into a panic.

“Gods, Lance! Are you all right?!” he cried out, running to the open door. It was caught on Lance’s foot anyway as the diabolical creature lingered at the entrance, puffed up and skirting around Lance. 

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he huffed in annoyance, eyes on the feline creature eyeing the inside of their house. “Close the door so it doesn’t get in. We don’t want it pissing everywhere.”

“Oh, right, good idea. You just have to move your feet first—right, there we go,” Hunk said, nudging Lance’s legs away in favor of shutting the door. Before he could, though, the black cat jumped a little and darted through the narrow crack. It was scrawny enough to make it through without getting its tale snapped in half.

“Oh for gods sake,” Lance muttered, getting up and dusting himself off as Hunk slowly opened the door, a guilty look on his face.

“Maybe it likes us?” Hunk suggested.

“I highly doubt it,” he said soto voce. “Help me catch it.”

That was far more difficult than either of them anticipated. Even with the door propped open for it to leave on its own, the cat remained anywhere but there. It would sit idly on the wood, the rug, the steps on the first floor of their house, until Hunk or Lance came so much as a foot away from it. At that point it would practically buck its feet up into the air and dart off, nimble as a goddamn snake, slithering out of their grasp by winding its body in impossible angles. Lance had never seen such a quick-footed cat before, which was really saying something consider cats all seemed to be agile creatures.

It ended with Hunk screaming about the food on the counter, just seconds before the cat leapt up and perched itself beside Hunk’s bowl of chopped vegetables. 

The both of them froze, arms out and panicked looks on their faces as the cat pressed a paw to the rim of the bowl. “Don’t do it, don’t do it,” Hunk chanted under his breath, and squealed a little when the cat nudged the bowl closer to the edge.

Lance stared at the cat with every intention of chasing it away from the bowl—at least, until he saw it’s obviously purplish-grey eyes studying them. He’d recognize that sharp, analytical gaze anywhere.

“…Keith?” he said, shoulders relaxing as the cat lowered its paw hesitantly. The cat itself was skinny, just like Lance’s mentor, with bony shoulders bunched up and tense. 

Lance could feel Hunk staring between them, a weak noise escaping his mouth. “ _This_ is where Keith has been… I mean— _What_ Keith has been for the past two days?” he said.

“You piece of shit!” Lance cried out, lunging for Keith. The skinny black cat bucked his feet up again and skittered away, nearly knocking the bowl over had Hunk not been there to cradle it in his arms.

Keith landed, skidding across the table and sending books off the edge on his way out of Lance’s warpath. “This _whole damn time—_! I thought you were traumatized by me almost _drowning you_! Making me feel— _guilty for nothing_!” Keith slid between the crack of the table and the chair and batted at Lance’s hand when he reached down to snatch him up. Unfortunately, Keith wasn’t exactly _declawed_.

“Ouch!” Lance cried out, retracting with a bloody hand. 

“He’s not exactly… acting like Keith,” Hunk commented from afar, shielding himself with the bowl of vegetables. 

The cat didn’t move from the chair, staring up at Lance as he huffed, clutching his bloody hand to his chest. Keith’s slim black tail was darting back and forth, sharp like a whip, purple eyes the size of the moon. “That’s definitely him,” Lance huffed. “Maybe he can’t… change back?”

Suddenly the cat leapt back onto the table, and sent both Lance and Hunk cowering in terror. The cat prowled, large eyes watching Lance, and those mannerisms were entirely what convinced him that the cat was Keith. The fact that he didn’t run, either, convinced him that his theory was correct. 

Keith _couldn’t_ change back.

“I-I’ve never changed forms before,” Lance stammered, horrified. “And _you_ expect _me_ to… change you back?” 

The cat dipped his head low, and if they hadn’t known it was a human in there, Lance would have just chalked it off as an attempt to lick his hand.

“Whaaa—?” Hunk groaned from the kitchen, staring wide-eyed between Lance and Keith. “But what if it isn’t Keith?”

Lance tapped his finger to his chin, concentrating, before scrambling for Keith’s satchel. It was essentially their entire library—every book Keith chose to keep was in there. His fast actions sent the cat leaping away, and off the table. “I read something on this before we moved here. You can’t make other animals human—that’s just how the rules work.”

As Lance started shuffling through Keith’s satchel, he sensed those massive, catlike eyes watching him from the floor. And then, the strap of the bag started shifting. He glanced down at Keith, where the damn cat was playing with the satchel’s strap.

“Yeah, because Keith _totally_ does that,” Hunk said sarcastically. 

Lance turned to him with a scowl. “It won’t work if this isn’t actually Keith. But it is weird—it’s like he’s acting like a cat…” _But if I know anything about Keith, it’s that he’s probably messing with me_ , he added to himself. 

But he didn’t want to think about the idea of Keith _not_ messing with him. Then that would suggest that Keith is _really_ stuck in the body of a cat.

Eventually Lance found the book on therianthropy. It wasn’t exactly what he was looking for, but it would have to suffice. For the most part, therianthropy books tend to focus on werewolves—shapeshifting as an innate gift. Keith shifting into a cat definitely _wasn’t_ natural.

“We’ll need a few things,” Lance said, but didn’t move an inch as he continued to read through the recipe. “And considering Keith is being a stubborn little _asshole_ , there’s no telling whether or not he’ll consume what we ask him to.”

“ _We_?” Hunk squeaked. “I’m not exactly a capable doctor here.”

“But you are good at making things,” Lance corrected, setting the satchel on the table, even as Keith’s paw became hooked on the strap. He swatted Keith away from it. “I’m going to look around Keith’s shop a little for supplies. Watch the cat?”

“No promises.”

“ _Hunk_ …”

“Only if he cooperates,” he said, raising his hands up in surrender as Lance glared at the both of them—Hunk and the cursed cat. But the second Lance stepped out the open door, only _then_ did Keith finally escape out of it. He let out an annoyed shout, throwing his hands up in frustration. Hunk closed the door after him, sticking his tongue out at the window so Lance could see it.

Keith the cat made every attempt possible to trip Lance on the way to the house. He even let out an obnoxious yowl every now and then that caused the people on the street to give him sideways looks. Lance smiled at them all apologetically, and wished nothing more than to clamp his hand over Keith’s goddamn mouth and _shut him up_.

Once at Keith’s house, he used his spare key to unlock the door. But Keith wasn’t anywhere in sight. Lance looked around the floor, only to be startled by a flash of black darting through the open kitchen window. 

Inside, Keith meowed loudly, distractedly, until Lance was finally able to snatch him up from behind. Despite the fight he put up, and the claws he sunk into Lance’s arms, Keith was finally subdued. “You little shit,” Lance huffed, restricting Keith’s legs and holding him close to his chest as he shuffled through the cabinets using his foot. Keith’s fur was cool and silky, but honestly Lance didn’t expect anything less. Even as a cat he took damn good care of his hair.

Lance released one hand to start sifting through the bottles in an upper shelf, and Keith stayed put, tail flicking violently left and right. He put together a basket for the supplies, and, after getting the one frozen ingredient from Keith’s cooler, he left the house and locked the door behind him. 

“I can’t fucking believe you turned yourself into a cat,” Lance muttered on their way back. “Couldn’t you have turned into something _cool_? Like, I don’t know, maybe a _dragon_ , you know, to keep Rover company?” 

In all honesty, Lance hadn’t seen Rover around lately. Rover was a dragon the three of them raised these past few months, but flight seemed to intrigue the creature. It was the first dragon around these parts in… _centuries_ , perhaps even an entire millennia. Surprisingly enough, Rover was a docile creature and happened to be of the loyal breed of dragons, which was just out of pure luck. Some dragons were vicious by nature, but not Rover. Lance often joked that she took after Hunk.

“Or maybe _find_ Rover,” Lance corrected after thinking about it long enough. Though, this was normal for Rover—taking week long journeys elsewhere. What _wasn’t_ normal, was Keith turning into a cat.

At the house, Lance set down a calmer Keith into one of the kitchen chairs, positioned close to survey Lance’s work. Perhaps it was his lack of self-confidence, but Lance always felt pressured to do better when Keith was around, and thus made fewer mistakes. There was only one part in the making of the potion where Keith clawed at Lance’s hip—and _damn_ , did that hurt. Later that night in the bath, Lance would find claw marks he didn’t recall getting over his chest from holding Keith, and certainly a few on his hip.

“Gods, a gentle tap would have worked fine,” Lance whined, rubbing at his hip as Hunk chuckled from the side. Hunk was currently plucking the florets off of a valerian flower, and letting the juices steep in the pot on the fire. 

Lance finely chopped up the dandelion root before brushing it into the pot. It was the one pot Hunk allowed Lance to use for potions and such—a heavy, two-handled cauldron meant to be placed over an open fire. Absolutely _no_ edible food meant for meals was cooked in there. That was Hunk’s rule.

After the ingredients were thoroughly mixed, and the powder was added slowly, the cauldron was removed from the heat. They set it outside, where it wouldn’t burn holes through the counter, and Lance stirred the liquid until it turned to oatmeal-like consistency. Keith watched him the entire time. Talk about an element of stress.

“Can you stop staring at me all the time?” Lance complained, but Keith’s catlike eyes didn’t move an inch. “Dammit, Keith, don’t make me shove you off the rock.”

“Don’t bully him,” Hunk whined. “He’s just a cat.”

“A cat who just happens to be _the most powerful sorcerer in the whole goddamn world_ , and he can’t even turn himself back into a human!” Lance exclaimed, jabbing both of his hands in Keith’s direction. The cat sat perfectly still, like a statue. Lance floundered his arms. “Would you _look at him_! He’s not _just_ a cat!”

“Well, right now he is.”

Lance groaned, flopping back against the side of the house. Once the steam left the potion, they brought the cauldron back in and dispensed it into a smaller container, for storage. “It has to be cooled before consumption,” Lance explained to Hunk before propping up the lid to their cooler. He placed it in and closed the top, turning to find two sets of eyes watching him. “What?”

“For how long?” Hunk asked.

“I don’t know, until it’s cool,” Lance said, shrugging. “The recipe didn’t go into details.”

Keith was flicking his tail agitatedly. But when wasn’t he?

“And it’s not like the potion will settle in right away. It… might take a few days, and even then the transition won’t be just a _poof_! suddenly Keith again,” he explained, gesturing with his hands. “And it’s not like Keith is naturally a therianthrope. It’ll be painful, which is why we added the optional calming herbs. He’ll basically be drugged the entire time.”

“So… you’re saying we’ll have to deal with a drugged cat for a few days,” Hunk said, discretely pointing at Keith. 

Lance looked briefly at Keith, as if to get confirmation of this. When he received nothing more than those stoic cat eyes, Lance sighed and said, “Yeah, that’s basically what’s going to happen.”

  


  


Drugged Keith was _not_ a happy Keith.

Within a few hours of lapping up the potion, he was loopy as fuck. One second he was walking in a straight line, and then it was like his tail suddenly threw him off balance. He waddled dementedly, and collapsed to the side caused Hunk to cry out, as if they just witnessed Keith’s death. 

Lance put Keith into an open-topped box, only to have the cat scramble out and flop to the side. Keith got up on all fours and, concentrating and walking straight, meandered diagonally into a wall. Lance picked up him and placed him back in the box—this time with a book as the lid.

That night, Hunk and Lance woke up to the most horrifying sound ever. It sounded like someone just dropped a baby into a grinder, but it was just Keith yowling and crying from the first floor. Lance flopped out of bed and went downstairs to calm Keith down, only to have four sets of claws sink into the flesh of his leg. Keith climbed up Lance’s leg and hung from his shirt until Lance painfully plucked him off, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes. Holy _shit_ did that hurt.

In bed, Lance forced Keith to lay the _fuck_ down at the foot of the bed, only to wake up to Hunk poking him in the side of the head an hour later. He gestured above him, and Lance groaned at the sight of Keith laying stone cold on top of Hunk’s back, eyes staring directly ahead at the wall. It was weird because when the moonlight caught on his feline eyes, they turned iridescent. 

In the morning, Keith couldn’t jump down from anything for the life of him. The second he tried to jump from the bed, he collapsed face-first into the wood. Hunk cooed childishly, picking him up and cradling cat Keith to his chest. “Aw, my poor baby,” he soothed.

“Hunk, what are you doing,” Lance deadpanned.

“Keith fell…”

“He’s not exactly a _cat_ , though. I’m sure he can understand you,” he insisted, but that didn’t stop Hunk from coddling Keith the entire day whenever he accidentally fell over or ran into something. It was why they kept Keith in that box.

It took three days of this: constant surveillance over Keith before he started to change. The change itself took a little over half an hour, and the second it started Lance laid Keith down on the open floor. He could barely stand to look for more than a few seconds at a time when the fur started to shed, and leave in its place red, irritated skin. His arms and legs elongated, and the placement of the joints shifted with horrifying cracks and creaks where the bones scraped against one another.

He doubled, tripled, quadrupled in size until he grew to his original height and his face broke through the cover of a button-like cat nose. The second his vocal chords returned to that of a human’s, Keith cried out and clutched his hands to his arms. His back arched and he screamed in agony.

Eventually he could form actual words, and said, breathlessly, “Ice—get ice—”

Lance repeated it until he realized what he was asking. “Ice bath! We need to make an ice bath!” He leapt up and shouted to Hunk, “Keep an eye on Keith, I’ll get the bath started!”

Once the water was running in the tub, Lance took handfuls of it and condensed them into small, spherical ice balls. They clattered to the bottom of the tub, chilling the tub and floating in the cool water until the layer of ice was at least an inch-deep in the water.

“Hunk!” Lance shouted. “Get Keith in here!”

Not even a minute later, Hunk came running in with Keith cradled in his arms. Keith’s skin looked slightly swollen, but somehow he still managed to look impossibly skinny, with bony hands and ankles. Lance stepped back and let Hunk dip Keith slowly in the water. A gasp came out of him, fingers trembling as he went under up to his neck.

Lance and Hunk stared at Keith in shock, which was probably not as shocked as Keith felt at that moment. His teeth were chattering profusely, and his eyes were glassy with unshed tears. His cheeks were red and tracked the lines of previous water marks, and his eyes were circled with what looked like bruises from lack of sleep, or just the transition back to humanoid.

The ice cubes began to melt almost as soon as Keith’s color began to turn back to normal. Hunk made willow bark tea and placed it between Keith’s frozen fingers. Eventually, he was able to move his elbows without immense pain in his joints. 

None of them spoke, at least, not until Keith finished the tea and the pain significantly subsided. Only then did a flicker of emotion pass through his features, returning his expression to that of pure unadulterated fury. 

“I need to get up,” he said abruptly, holding the tea out to Hunk as he braced a hand on the side of the tub. 

Lance jumped forward, holding him down gently. “Are you _kidding_ right now? Seriously?” he exclaimed, “The book even says you shouldn’t be moving around a whole lot until your bone structure and muscles are settled back to the way they used to be. You aren’t exactly built to shift nonchalantly to and from _fucking cat form_.”

“I didn’t _do it_ , that’s the thing,” Keith hissed through clenched teeth as he shoves Lance away harshly. “Someone cursed me, and if they are able to turn non-shapeshifter suddenly into animals, then they could do it again. Has anyone been disappearing? Have you heard of anyone not returning in the past two days?” 

Lance stared at Keith in shock, so Hunk put in, “No, just you. And they all pretty much heard that you weren’t around so I think they’d be careful about anyone else dropping off the face of the earth.”

“Good,” Keith huffed.

He emerged from the tub, completely stark naked, and caused both Hunk and Lance to shield their eyes. Keith muttered under his breath about them being weak as fuck on his way to grabbing a towel. “It happened while I was asleep so I wasn’t even conscious to feel the effects of the shift until I woke up. _Lance_ , come with me.”

“Wha—Dude, you’re _super_ naked—”

“ _Lance_ ,” Keith snarled, and Lance squeaked uncertainly under his breath before following after his mentor.

Keith could barely make it to the front door with his legs as wobbly as they were, so with one hand clutching the towel around his waist, he used the other to hang onto Lance’s shoulders. Lance looked sparingly at Hunk, a look on his face that said, _Help me!_

They got to Keith’s house with only a few weird looks now that the streets were relatively thinned out. Keith barged in and struggled up the stairs. Lance stuck to the first floor, swaying absently on his feet while he waited for his mentor to change. Once, there was a thud and a, “ _Shit_!” from up the stairs, but in the end Keith made it, looking more or less dead inside.

“I don’t think it was a therianthropy curse that did this to me,” Keith said. “Even if it did work in reversing the effects. “I think it might have been transfiguration—and I’m not entirely talking about spiritual terms. It is more of a spiritual magick than a physical one, which… might have been why a reverse therianthropy spell managed to work for you.”

It made sense, Lance realized. His elemental magick was heavily based on water, which was a spiritual element. It meant he excelled in anything involving either of those—water, or spirituality. The fact that someone used a semi-spiritual curse against Keith was probably dumb luck on Lance’s part.

“Why do you think it was transfiguration?” he asked, an eyebrow quirking up.

“Therianthropy curses are incredibly hard to cancel out. A lot of people infected with it, depending on the complexity of the spell, either stay in the form they were put into, or they become a shapeshifter for life. As far as I can tell, you got rid of all the effects, so I’d say we don’t have to worry about any more _cat issues_.” Keith finished bitterly, glaring ahead of him as he hurried towards the cabinets and started sifting through his baskets of dried herbs. He pulled out sticks of dried sage and passed two to Lance. “We’re cleaning the house.”

“ _Again_?” he whined. When they first moved in, Keith forced Lance to help him ‘clean the air’ which essentially made the entire house smell like burning marijuana for _weeks_. But, according to Keith, at least it got out the bad spirits.

Lance held his shirt over his nose as he went around the house waving the smoking sage around in the air. Keith took care of the upstairs, so Lance dealt with the first floor. He waved the sage over the cot in the far corner, where patients stayed if necessary. There were drawings up on the wall from a kid Keith took care of after the child took a nasty fall and broke her arm down by the beach. 

Lance squinted at the pictures and smiled at the bright yellow winged dog that was meant to be Rover. He laughed a little under his breath. He wondered where Rover was now—with how fast Lance last saw her flying, Rover could be anywhere. Hell, she could be back in Terra, where they used to live.

After cleansing the air, Lance practically ran out of the shop and waved a hand in front of his face, coughing. Keith stepped out, far more relaxed than Lance at the moment, and scowled up and down the street. Casual scowling tended to be Keith’s general default expression.

“I tried to highlight the path the intruder made,” Keith said, voice quiet and for Lance’s ears only.

He gave a start, looking startled at his mentor. “You—wait, you _what?_ ”

Keith sighed, crossing his arms and rubbing absently at his elbows. “It’s easiest to do it with people who have magick. We all leave behind invisible footprints, and sorcerers more than others. But… no one was there. Even two days later it should still be there.”

Lance continued to stare at him. “I can’t believe you never taught me that trick. Why haven’t you taught me that before? Was it in any of the books back in your library in Terra?”

Keith rolled his eyes and scratched at his neck. “ _No_. It’s… more or less something I’ve theorized about based on things I’ve read. I’ve used it a few times to test it out, so I _know_ it works. Which means this doesn’t have anything to do with our little friend trying to ambush me.”

 _Our little ‘friend_ ’, Lance scoffed irritably. He didn’t even want to think about that person at the moment, and was forever grateful that their ‘little friend’ wasn’t involved in turning Keith into a cat.

“So then what? What about… you know, _other worldly_ creatures?” Lance suggested, and both of them paused afterwards. A woman and her son were passing, and they put on smiles and waved happily at them in passing. Keith suggested they head back to Lance’s house. Talking about this out in the open would only cause people to panic.

“It might not have been anything at all,” Keith said as they pushed through the door. “See if there’s a transfiguration book in my bag.”

As Keith lowered himself into a chair at the table, Lance started shuffling around, pulling books out left and right, piling them up one on top of the other. Keith’s bottomless satchel normally produced the items that were right off the top of Lance’s head, and since it wasn’t… it meant that they were out of luck when it came to transfiguration books.

“What do you remember about it?” Lance asked, sitting across from him now.

Keith rubbed his fingers to his temple and sighed. “I… don’t know. I doubt it was something I ate—it would take more than just one herb to do this.”

Lance tapped his foot on the ground, thinking, before suggesting, “An illness?” He frowned as soon as Keith let out an amused laugh. “I’m serious. What if you’re sick?”

“I seriously doubt an _illness_ could cause a person to shapeshift. We’re talking curses or poisons,” he said, ticking them off on his fingers. “And illness does _not_ fit under those two categories.”

Lance huffed, propping his chin up on his hand as Keith drummed his fingers against the stack of books Lance deposited from his satchel. Lance listened for Hunk, and could faintly hear him upstairs, passing over the floorboards. 

“So let’s say… illness _is_ an option,” Keith said with a dejected sigh. Lance gasped in excitement, only to be interrupted by Keith holding up a hand to silence him. “How would you identify whether or not I’m ill?”

“Body chart. On it,” Lance said, jumping up and hurriedly running over to Keith. He pulled back the chair before Keith even had the chance to move it himself.

As Lance knelt down in front of Keith and pressed his hand to his mentor’s chest, Keith continued to rant about what it could have been that caused this to happen. Lance filtered him out, closing his eyes and faintly repeating the words of the spell under his breath. It took only two tries, and it was just a simple mispronunciation that caused the first try to falter.

He’d done this to many patients back in Terra, but none had come back like this. Normally he picked up natural diseases, illnesses. The common cold was something that Lance was all too familiar with, and could detect it just from feeling the patient’s sternum. But this was far more than the sensation of the common cold. The common cold was focused, and targeted only certain areas of the patient’s body.

Keith’s body chart was entirely infected by… _whatever the hell that was_.

“You are… definitely suffering from something. And you can’t feel it?” Lance asked, pulling his hand away and looking up at Keith, eyebrows scrunched together.

Instantly Keith shut up and stared at Lance. “What are you talking about?”

“Whatever it is… it’s literally _everywhere_ inside you. Would curses show up like this in a body chart?” Lance asked. “Honestly, how could you _miss this_? Even if you didn’t see the person responsible for it, it’s a pretty hard thing to miss.”

“What is it?” Keith demanded.

Damn, it was always difficult describing these things. Usually it was just an innate response, coupled with Lance’s thorough background on illness definitions. But this wasn’t in any of Lance’s medical books. “I… don’t know. It kind of has this imprint of dry hair. You know what I’m talking about? Like if you let your hair get all knotty and frizzy, but not greasy.”

“Describe ‘dry’.”

“How the hell do you describe ‘dry’?” Lance exclaimed. “What do you want me to say?”

“Does it feel familiar at all?” Keith insisted, irritated. He stared up at his mentor before rising to his feet and moving away. In the kitchen Lance pressed a hand to his forehead while Keith repeated it. _What does it feel like_? 

At last, Lance exclaimed, “I don’t know! What do you want me to say?”

“Does it feel like my magick?” he said, and at this Lance faltered, taking a moment to simply stare at Keith. The man’s eyes looked more panicked than usual, expressive like the cat that wandered drunkenly through his house just earlier that day.

Lance stepped over to Keith again, this time pulling up a chair to sit on and face his mentor. He pressed his hand to Keith’s chest again, and repeated the spell as he had before. It worked perfectly, and this time Lance knew what he was looking for. It wasn’t just simply _dry_ —it was heavy with the heat of Keith’s elemental magick. 

“It’s like… your source is infecting you. But how is that possible?” Lance asked, shocked as he pulled his hand back. “It’s almost like you can’t… It’s like it’s not even _in_ the source anymore? Does that make sense?”

Keith held his hand to where Lance’s once was. He stared at Lance, slowly beginning to resolve the conclusion to this mystery. Lance was still on the outside of it until Keith finally spoke up. “It might be from using a different source for magick,” Keith said. “Using the energy from plants instead of a source well. I’ve been using a source well for… as long as I can remember.”

“What are you suggesting?” he asked, raising a brow up. “You still use the source well by the ocean—it was just that one time…”

“I used a _lot_ , Lance,” Keith explained. “More than I should have, from a new source like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if—well, with that theory, everything made from the Mother Earth is capable of retaining magick for sorcerers to tap into. But… everyone has blocks on their magick, some more than others, and what if our individual sources are contained to prevent it from leaking into our physical beings? As in, a human source well.”

  


  


Keith spent several days after his discussion with Lance contemplating the possibility. If Keith was correct, then sorcerers would be able to sap energy out of him—at least, the magickal energy the source infected him with. The chances of that happening the exact way it normally did in nature were… incredibly high. It would mean that sapping Keith’s magick would either kill him, or leave him incredibly weak until his magick source would regenerate.

He didn’t like that idea at all. 

It left him more vulnerable than he liked.

In those several days, Keith found that some of his feline habits were still active. Some things were hard to get rid of, like his now suddenly jittery paranoia. If someone so much as knocked on his door, he felt all the hairs on his body stand up on end. That happened often, considering he _was_ the only apothecary aside from his apprentice Lance.

On his first day back in human form, Hunk slapped Keith gently on the head, knocking him out of a subconscious attempt to lick his hand to clean a spot of flour on his forehead. It was both embarrassing and irritating, considering Lance laughed about it for hours. 

Five days later, Keith was down by the ocean bluff when a screech filled the air. It sounded like metal grinding on metal, but it was familiar enough to bring him to his feet, looking for the source frantically. He looked down at the center of the town, where the sound called out some of the people from their homes. The fact that Hunk ran out in excitement confirmed that Keith wasn’t going crazy.

“Rover’s back!” Lance shouted as he ran up to the bluff where Keith was waiting. “Have you seen him?”

“Not yet,” Keith answered, only to be startled senseless by that same sound, erupted from behind them.

They turned just as a massive gust of wind sent the both of them staggering, their hair whipping around them. A shock of golden yellow flew up, parallel to the vertical edge of the cliff. Two massive, graceful wings spread out at a wingspan twice that what Keith recalled when they first arrived in town. 

Rover was magnificent.

But he swore he heard… his name somewhere on the wind?

Rover straightened out, spiraling towards the bluff, directly towards them. It was only then that Keith realized where his name came from, and he was speechless at the sight of someone perched on the back of Rover’s iridescent, glittering gold scales.

“Keith! Keith, Keith, Keith!” _Holy shit_ , Keith mused, his eyes the size of the moons when he watched Pidge swing her legs off of Rover’s back.

She staggered away from Rover’s delicate, but massive wings. She was weary heavy-duty leather pants for the sake of saving her flesh from Rover’s scales, and she propped up the goggles stuck over her eyes. “Lance! Keith! Oh gods, Hunk!” she cried out, throwing her arms up in the air just as Rover huffed out a breath of steam, practically soaking Keith’s hair as Hunk came running up the side of the hill.

“My baby!” Hunk cried out, and flung his arms around Rover’s neck. Rover raised her head up and stepped closer, closer, until she forced Hunk to the ground and flopped on top of him.

Keith looked between them, shocked, until Pidge grabbed his full attention. “Shiro’s on his way—but Rover met up with us somewhere around Druid Cliffs. Rover’s not exactly… rider-friendly yet, but I’ll see if I can get her to take me back,” she explained rapidly as she flung off her backpack and gently sat it on the ground between them. “We’ve got a present for you.”

“No way,” Lance whispered beside Keith. 

One look behind them and Keith could see the villagers starting to gather, accepting Hunk’s invitation for them to give Rover a pat. All the people in the town loved Rover, even before she took off almost two weeks ago, and she graciously accepted their love and affection. Keith looked back at Pidge just as she pulled out a spherical object wrapped in a wool blanket. 

Instantly Keith snatched it up and hid it against his stomach. “Is that what I think it is?” Lance said, pointing to it.

“It is,” Pidge grinned cheekily, the circular lines from her goggles crinkling a little. “Shiro wanted me to get it to you as fast as possible, and if that meant taking Rover then so be it.”

“Where did you…?” Keith asked, his shock clear on his face.

“Underwater,” she answered, but before she could explain herself, she strapped her goggles back on. “I’ve gotta get back to Shiro. We’re putting our heads together to figure out what species it is. It will likely be semi-aquatic with a hankering for fish. Meaning we’ll have to learn how to fish until it’s able to do so itself.”

“That’s only _if_ it hatches,” Keith whispered back, practically curling himself over the object so the villagers wouldn’t see. “What if it isn’t aquatic? The water would kill the embryo on day one of being in the ocean.”

“Okay, one: it was a lake,” Pidge said, “and two: unlike our friend Rover here, Shiro actually has information on this egg morphology. It’s likely semi-aquatic. Start learning how to fish, bozo.”

With that, she whistled loudly, and shooed everyone away from Rover. The dragon continued to chase after the people leaving her, at least until Hunk and Pidge got her to calm down and get her set to fly again. She was practically floating, itching to move around and accept the love of the townspeople.

“Put it in boiling water over an open flame!” Pidge shouted at Keith as she swept her leg over the lower half of Rover’s slim neck. A second later, Rover scrambled over the edge of the cliff, and with a shout Pidge erupted into laughter, swinging over the waves and following wherever the air current carried Rover. 

People brushed past them, running to the edge and waving excitedly up at Pidge and Rover as they darted overhead. Their shadow drifted over the people, and cast Keith, Lance, and Hunk in brief darkness before the sun returned and reminded Keith that they had to get the egg to safety.

Keith hurried past the people crowding to see Rover soar through the air. Lance and Hunk followed him while his apprentice explained quietly what was going on, and why Keith looked like he had a hunch, carrying the egg in his arms.

He burst into his house and, using one arm to hold on to the egg, he shuffled around for a clean cauldron. The instant Lance and Hunk entered, Keith was on his way to the fireplace. A second later, the wood inside the hearth burst into flames in a massive _woosh!_ that caused Hunk to cry out in surprise. 

“Lance, water,” Keith ordered.

“On it.” While his apprentice filled up the cauldron, Keith unwrapped the egg to see its full glory.

Hunk came over to observe it, and marveled at the curious color it had. It was entirely spherical, unlike the oval shape to Rover’s egg over a year ago. This one was polished, almost like a gem. Keith was surprised Pidge and Shiro knew the difference between an egg and a perfectly chiseled gemstone. It was massive for a gem, though, and had the appearance of larimar pectolite—an almost sky-blue quality to it with a shiny, clear coat over the top that made the entire surface smooth and slippery. Keith was thankful he hadn’t known that before, otherwise he probably would have dropped it by accident out of pure anxiety over _not_ letting it slip through his fingers.

There were white veins stretching through it, soft and fuzzy around the edges. It sort of had the appearance of frost against the blue gem.

“Hunk, you want to put the egg in the cauldron?” Keith asked, clearing his throat.

Hunk did as Keith asked, and soon they were all circled around the fire, watching the water as it started to simmer and release steam. Lance kept the cauldron filled when the water level decreased, until nighttime came and Keith told them to get some rest. He kept up with the water level and sat by the fire, thinking about what Pidge had said. 

_They’re coming back. Shiro’s coming back_.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oneshot feat. primary school Shiro and Keith on the hunt for their first kiss. Where is it? When is it? The world may never know.
> 
> Also, friggin' thanks [worncassette](http://archiveofourown.org/users/worncassette/pseuds/worncassette) for briefly mentioning "first kiss", to which I replied with A) flipping a table and then B) regurgitating this shitshow into document form.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING: Includes minor spoilers from later on in the original book.

“We don’t have to move fast. I’m okay with taking it easy,” Shiro was saying, and it took all of Keith’s energy to will the blush to vanish from his cheeks. He rubbed a hand over them as Shiro continued, “Besides, school’s our number one priority. And you promised to do well on your entry exams so we’d get in the same school.”

 _No need to remind me_ , Keith mused dreadfully. He spent far too much time focusing on his magick when really, it just made his other subjects suffer. He was almost certain the reason Shiro insisted they study together would be to keep Keith on track to graduating with honors and an acceptance letter to their favorite university.

So studying together wasn’t entirely what Keith expected it to be when they shared their mutual interest in one another. It was almost as if Shiro confessing that he had feelings for Keith beyond that of friendship just… wasn’t relevant half the time. They acted like they normally would, but with the extra comfort level of cuddling while studying, or holding hands now and then. 

But that didn’t bother Keith. It didn’t bother him one bit.

Considering he never suspected that he’d ever be romantically involved with anyone, this was a fair start.

“I know. Do you think you could help me with maths tonight?” Keith asked, turning his gaze up to Shiro.

Shiro grinned, turning and throwing his arms playfully around Keith’s shoulders. They swayed to the side as Shiro said, “I thought you’d never ask!”

Keith giggled against Shiro’s chest, where his spring jacket opened up to his fleece sweater underneath. Their primary school’s dress code would be less strict in no more than a month and a half. It meant Keith could go back to wearing the sweaters he always wore outside of school, and the thinner t-shirts in the summer. He wouldn’t have to wear strait-legged pants anymore. He could go back to his flowy sweats with the infinite pockets. 

He missed those infinite pockets.

Exams went well enough—considering most exams were hell, Keith felt ultimately better this time for unknown reasons. He figured it was because of the reward he and Shiro decided on. “We make it through the last exam, and that purgatory time before we move out, we explore the town,” Keith had suggested, grinning cheekily at the thought. They’d be able to do whatever the hell they wanted, unsupervised by professors breathing down their necks.

“You brilliant bastard,” Shiro murmured under his breath, which completely ruined the moment. Keith snorted unpleasantly, and Shiro burst into laughter. “Okay, okay, post-exams we’ll go out on the town. Where would you want to go?”

Now there was a question. He spent the past three years living in the city, but there was always something new around every corner. He couldn’t really think of anything, except perhaps cute date places.

In all honesty, Keith just wanted to go on a _real_ date with Shiro. That was what people did, right? They had friends who dated girls from the all girls school not far from Devereux, but they had the advantage of making every meet up a day. They would go out to hang out with their girlfriends, and make a night of it because they were leaving campus to see each other. 

In a way, Keith was jealous. But at the same time, he was grateful he didn’t have to go far to see Shiro. Theirs was a casual relationship, and not something Keith could see himself getting tired of. 

So Keith leaned against Shiro’s side, the wall up against their backs and their legs stretched out to the edge of Keith’s bed. “I want to go wherever you want to go,” he said. “I want to take you out on a date.”

It didn’t seem to register in Shiro’s mind until Keith looked up and saw a sheepish smile tugging at his lips. Shiro glanced away a little, and scratched the back of his neck with a little laugh. “Really?”

“We’ve been dating since the beginning of the year when we’ve never been on a proper date,” Keith said, and quickly added, “But I mean, that’s fine with me. We’re more or less the slowest moving couple on this goddamn planet.”

Shiro tilted his head back and laughed loudly. “Right. Steve thinks we’re an elderly married couple or something.”

“We don’t bicker though.”

“Do we?”

“ _Shiro_ …” Keith groaned, throwing himself over Shiro’s legs and burying his face into the blankets. Shiro laughed, and bent down to wrap his arms around Keith’s back and tuck his face against Keith’s neck.

He was thankful Shiro couldn’t see his face when Shiro went and kissed his lips to Keith’s neck. “Remember our first date?” he asked, and Keith let out an annoyed groan, pushing himself up to nudge Shiro away.

“Don’t _remind me_ ,” he whined. Their first date was officially the worst, but somehow they managed to move past it. Perhaps that was why they rarely went out, except with friends. It probably had something to do with the fact that even if they went somewhere on their own, somehow their friends ended up finding them—either by coincident, or just flat out planned sabotage. Their first date was around the time they hadn’t told anyone about their relationship, and Brent and his girlfriend were out on the town that same night. They stumbled across Keith and Shiro walking through the farmer’s market, and there really wasn’t any point in disputing the fact that they were holding hands and still innocently sheepish about it. It just made their embarrassment even worse when Brent’s girlfriend shrieked in excitement and congratulated them like they got married or something.

Keith was so embarrassed he ended up burning Shiro’s hand by accident and effectively caused the date to close with patching up the blisters growing on Shiro’s palm.

“I promise not to burn your hand again,” Keith said, pushing himself up against the headboard of his bed.

“Don’t make promises you can’t keep…” Shiro jested, and Keith scowled at him in response. “All right, fine. Let’s say you _don’t_ burn my hand this time. But either way afterwards you can’t avoid me for an entire _week_. That was _torture_.” 

Keith smiled a little, watching Shiro moan and groan about Keith’s treatment of him following their first ‘date’. He’d been so embarrassed about burning Shiro’s hand that he barely spoke to Shiro afterwards. Keith had wholeheartedly believed that he had crossed the line there, especially after fully understanding Shiro’s animosity towards sorcerers. And he went and _burned Shiro_. Obviously there would be some resentment on Shiro’s side, but eventually he cleared everything up with Keith. 

Just one little mistake like that wouldn’t convince Shiro that Keith was a terrible guy.

“It’d be kind of hard to avoid you, considering,” Keith rationalized. Half the time he forgot about what came after school. He’d go back to live with Allura over the summer, only this time Shiro would be joining him. He figured this was another reason they chose to take things slow—at a snail’s pace, if you will. 

Keith figured Allura wouldn’t take too kindly to a bunch of adolescent lovesick idiots. They were practically toddlers to her—she’d hate to deal with their ridiculous hormones anyway.

Shiro’s face lit up at the thought of it. “I’m so excited to spend all summer with Allura,” he blurted out, but quickly managed to school himself. “But we should really get back to studying. _Don’t tempt me_.”

  


Keith was certain the reason they hadn’t kissed was because their mutual shock at realizing that life wasn’t all about guys and girls getting together. There was one time they came extremely close to crossing that line from simple romantic details straight into the foreign realm of sexual desires. For one, Keith felt that not only was he completely inexperienced to the world of building a relationship, but he was also completely new to the idea of dating a _guy_. And at the beginning of last summer, he thought he and Shiro were just _friends_. Ha! What an interesting concept.

It happened one night when they were playing bored games in Shiro’s dorm. Things got a little out of hand, and one thing led to another and Shiro was practically on top of Keith, pinning him to the ground. He was so startled that everything inside him flared up like a flame. His entire face went red, and he scrambled out from under Shiro. In a wild attempt to prevent _that_ from happening, Keith ditched the game and ran to his own room. He spent the entire night sitting on his bed, bundled up in a blanket wondering why the hell he panicked like that.

So Shiro reminded Keith that they could take it slow. It freaked him out as much as it did Keith, so he felt better not being the only one freaking the fuck out over this.

But it’d been long enough, and one too many close calls later that Keith knew he _really_ wanted to kiss Shiro. No more screwing around.

The day Keith emerged from his last exam, surrounded by a crowd of students rushing to get out of the testing room once and for all, he stumbled across Shiro waiting for him. Some of the kids from the exam came up to him, talked for a little, before realizing that Keith was waiting for them to _leave dammit_. One of them clapped Keith on the back and said, “Hope you did well in there! That essay was awful.”

“Tell me about it,” Keith laughed. _Please don’t_ , he added to himself. He’d been looking forward to this day ever since he suggested it. He didn’t want to waste it making chitchat with peers.

Shiro dropped his arm onto Keith’s shoulders and steered him through the hallway. “When did you get out of your exam?” Keith asked. He leant into Shiro’s side, and subconsciously breathed in the scent of his soap. Mostly lavender.

“About half an hour ago. I haven’t stopped by my room yet,” he confessed. It took a moment for Keith to realize that meant Shiro sat outside Keith’s exam room for thirty minutes. Before he could accuse him of it, Shiro added, “You want me to meet you at the gates?”

Keith hummed his agreement, considering as soon as Keith got to his room, it was probably a good thing Shiro didn’t accompany him. The realization that this was a _date_ meant that he should probably dress _nice_ or something. All he had in his wardrobe involved the school uniform, and that just didn’t seem fitting.

So in a panic he ran to his neighbor’s room before remembering that Brent had approximately the same build as him. He ran down the stairs of the dorm, swinging around the curved railing, and darting to Brent’s door. He hammered rapidly on it until a tired-looking Brent answered the door.

“What is it?” he asked, leaning against the door.

“Do you have anything not-uniform-related that I could borrow?” Keith asked, foot tapping quickly on the ground. Brent blinked slowly at him before pushing open his door. “ _Thank you_.”

As Keith entered and paced the open space between the twin beds, Brent sifted around in his closet, pushing aside navy sweater after navy sweater. “What’s this about anyway?” Brent asked, leaning out of the closet to look at Keith.

He narrowed his eyes. “None of your business. I just need something nice.”

Brent held up his hands, as if to say, “Calm down, I’m just asking.” He disappeared into the closet again and came out with a bluish collared shirt, which he then topped with a dark grey vest. “Keep the top button on the dress shirt unbuttoned,” he coached, and Keith nodded quickly. “And then top it with one of your blazers. I don’t have the right color here—probably something that’s similar to the vest.”

“Perfect, thank you,” Keith said, and he seriously meant it. 

Brent waved his hand dismissively and saw Keith out. Before closing the door, he leaned out and said, “Good luck man,” and it was almost like he knew what Keith was up to.

  


  


Shiro wasn’t at the gate yet when Keith showed up, so he sat on one of the stone ledges of the fencing and waited. It didn’t take long, and he didn’t mind waiting, especially when Shiro showed up like _that_. He seemed to be under the same impression Keith was: to dress for the occasion. 

“Look at you,” he said as Keith stood up. 

Keith crossed his arms stubbornly until Shiro weaseled one of his hands away, so he could hold it. “Honestly, you look good,” Shiro told him.

“You too.”

It was so ridiculous they both started laughing. It took a while for Keith to realize that they were walking, and yet, he had no clue where they were going. “Do you have any idea what our first stop is?” Keith decided to ask.

Shiro chuckled, absently swaying towards Keith as he answered, voice low, “It’s a secret.”

“Ah,” he mused aloud, “of course it is.”

They walked for twenty-some minutes, talking here and there like they usually did. They were comfortable in silence, though, so Keith relished every damn second of it. His excitement made it all the more difficult to mute his magick, but he was sure Shiro was picking up some of the heat radiating from his hand. His main concern was accidentally tapping into Shiro’s thoughts without meaning to.

He didn’t need to know what Shiro was thinking.

The road they follow started to dip downwards, onto the edge of the harbor where, on the weekends, farmers would come to the city, pitch up tents, and sell their goods. It was a week day, so it was far more empty than Keith ever recalled it being. 

“Remember what I said about my mom’s work?” Shiro said, and Keith nodded. She worked with distributing foods and other goods via shipments overseas. “Have you ever been on a boat?”

“Briefly, I think. I don’t really remember,” he confessed, his giddy excitement building as they started to walk towards the docks.

To his utter surprise, Shiro knew one of the men at the harbor. The man was visiting for a short period, having sailed up the river where it flowed out into the ocean, where Shiro normally lived. His name was Hector, and when Shiro called out his name, that burly fellow turned with a startlingly bright smile.

“Takashi!” he shouted, throwing his arms up as he swung out onto the dock. Keith was fairly certain the wood posts shifted. “You made it! And is this Keith?”

Shiro nodded, and Keith politely reached out a hand to the man. His grip was like iron and Keith felt his fingers go a little numb by the time he retracted them. Hector rounded them up into his boat—it was meant for shipping freights, and above the captain’s cabin was a viewing deck. He let Shiro and Keith sit up there and watch while Hector’s crew got the ship heading westward, back here it came from. 

“There’s a bridge around the bend—you know the one I’m talking about?” Shiro asked, pointing down the river. Keith nodded vaguely. “We’re going to jump off there.”

“Excuse me?” he blurted out with a nervous laugh.

“It’ll be easy. Hector said he’ll bring the ship close to the ladder on the bridge column. Trust me on this,” Shiro said, and promptly admitted that he’d done this a few times before, whenever Hector visited the city. He would sit on this very rooftop, above the captain’s cabin, and wait for the bridge to arrive.

But the magnificent thing about sitting on top of a ship transporting freights, was the fact that they could see _everything_. Keith marveled at the east and west side of the river, where the buildings and streets rose up in a wave that dipped lowest at the river. The stone ledges lining the river canal, busy with people. The sound of water rushing underneath them. The children on the edge waving to their ship passing by. Keith raised a hand up and waved back, which just seemed to send the kids into a fit of excitement.

“I feel like…” Shiro started, leaning back on his hands as he inhaled slowly, and exhaled, smiling. “I feel like my life can only get better from here.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I’ve already had the worst happen to me, which means that nothing can possibly top that,” he said, shaking his head. “I just feel incredibly lucky that I get to be better with you.”

Keith turned away from the shoreline to stare at Shiro. He hadn’t expected something like that to come out of Shiro’s mouth. They hadn’t talked about the reason why Shiro was at first resentful towards Keith. They hadn’t talked about how his brother passed away, how he and his mother had to go through that tragedy on top of the poverty caused by her company’s management shift. But good things came of it: his friends and family provided for his schooling. He was _in_ school, unlike many rural kids. 

“I’m glad I get to see this side of you, too,” he replied, clinging tighter to Shiro’s hand as the wind buffeted their hair and the open flap of Keith’s blazer. “You know, Allura really wants to meet your mom. She would totally take a trip to your hometown to meet her, and probably drag me along with her.”

Shiro leant his head against Keith’s hair and said, “We’ll talk about that another time.”

The ship curved around the bend in the river, and the bridge came into view. The bridge itself was high enough to avoid skimming the underside of the bridge, and when they came close enough, Shiro pointed out the metal ladder attached to a concrete column. “You’ll go first,” Shiro said.

Keith floundered for a second before exclaiming, “ _What?_ Me?”

Shiro laughed, moving them over to the edge of the ship’s roof. “Trust me—this way I can supervise you. Come on.”

They shimmied down to the first deck and ran to the railing. There, Shiro hopped onto one of the crates and yanked Keith up with him. He swayed precariously before getting his footing in time for the bridge to slowly, gently, approach them. He glanced up at the captain’s cabin, and saw Hector smiling down at them. He gave them a thumbs up, just before Shiro called his attention forward again.

“One hand on the top rung—right, and then foot on the railing,” he coached, and Keith followed his orders until suddenly he found himself stepping off the ship completely, both feet on the bottom rung of the bridge ladder. 

He laughed, looking at Shiro, only to panic when he saw Shiro disappearing around the corner of the column. A second later his heart returned, since now Shiro was running to another crate farther up the deck, jumping up onto it, and grabbed the rung next to one of Keith’s hands.

“Put your feet closer together,” Shiro said, and placed his on either side of Keith’s. He leaned off the ladder and reached a hand out to wave to Hector. All Keith could do was stare at the concrete bricks and try unsuccessful to keep from blushing. Shiro was practically _on top of him_.

“You good?” Shiro asked once the ship passed underneath the bridge.

“Uh—yeah, yeah I think so.”

“Perfect. You’ll go up ahead of me, I’ll spot you,” he reassured Keith. 

Slowly, Keith started stepping up rung by rung. The ladder bars were far apart, but it didn’t take long for both of them to climb up to the maintenance gate on the top of the bridge. Keith fiddled with the lock until at last he pushed it open and shrieked, falling forward onto the brick walkway. He curled his feet up onto land and peered down at Shiro, who popped up right after him.

“Glad to see you aren’t afraid of heights,” Shiro commented, and Keith slapped him on the arm.

“Well, you didn’t exactly give me a _choice_ , now did you?” he laughed, rolling his eyes to the side. A moment later Shiro dusted off his knees and yanked Keith up off the ground, both hands clasped over Keith’s wrists. He shut and locked the service gate behind them. “But it was fun.”

Shiro let out a relieved sigh, and Keith laughed a little. “What, were you afraid I wouldn’t like it?” Keith asked.

“Maybe a little,” he confessed, a hand still on Keith’s arm as he reached his free hand up to scratch the top of his hair. “And honestly, if you didn’t want to jump onto the ladder, Hector said he’d drop us off at the docking yard a mile or so down the river.”

Keith shoved him a little, but smiled. “Right, so, now it’s my turn.”

He thought about this for hours before going to bed. _Literal_ hours. He probably could have been studying during that time, but either way his thoughts were on this and he still came up with almost nothing. All he could think of were his favorite places to go in the city, nothing particularly _new_ or _exciting_. 

So they started walking towards the history museum. 

Shiro let out an excited noise when he realized where they were going, and the museum was in their line of sight. They’d been there once on a field trip, and for those who didn’t know it was a museum, it looked like an ordinary building. It had the facade of one of the town houses, but inside there were marble floors and a front desk that gave them tickets in exchange for several coins. Keith nudged Shiro out of the way before he could pay for it.

“I don’t think I’ve been here since first year,” Shiro confessed. “And even then we had to leave early because _someone_ tipped over an expensive vase or something like that.”

“I think it was a statue,” Keith corrected. “It was of King Alfor, from Altea. And his head rolled across the entire room. I swear it practically landed at the feet of the curator.”

Shiro burst out laughing, and quickly hushed himself, remembering where they were. “Oh yeah, I remember that now.”

Keith felt his insides turning to mush. For whatever strange reason, it was like all his thoughts blanked out and he wasn’t quite sure what would come out of his mouth next, because it wasn’t scripted, that was for sure. So, for the most part, he let Shiro do the talking as they wandered through the historical rooms, and focused on the Altean pieces that were modeled behind glass cases and paintings that were beyond valuable. They were one of a kind, salvaged from a world no longer accessible to them except through museum artifacts. 

“Allura hates coming here,” Keith said suddenly as they stared at a masterpiece hung before them. It was easily twice the height of either of them. 

Startled, Shiro looked at him. “Why?”

“She doesn’t like remembering, I think,” he confessed. “It’s not like she remembers much to begin with at this point. But I think that’s the reason why.”

“Because everyone thinks she’s Altean,” Shiro said, and Keith was about to correct him, saying that Allura was _still_ Altean, but Shiro continued quickly. “I mean that, well, she spent so little time in Altea. She’s only Altean in appearance, nothing else. But people expect her to be. Because of… what’s that phrase?”

“Judging a book by it’s cover,” Keith filled in.

They were both a little startled that Keith was able to pick it out, and at that moment he realized he must have been prying by accident. He flushed, hoping Shiro hadn’t noticed that he was picking around in his brain without meaning to, but his embarrassment only seemed to cause Shiro to laugh. 

Shiro nudged their shoulders together and said, “It’s like you read my mind or something. Let’s head to the next room.”

 _For fuck’s sake, I did read your mind_ , Keith mused guiltily as he let Shiro lead him through the archway.

They entered the main hall—a long, magnificent room with massive oil paintings hung on either side. Even from afar, Keith could see the layers of paint upon paint, the mixture of orange against blue in the water. Koi fish in a pond. A sunset against the ocean. Flowers in the foreground. 

“Have you ever tried painting?” Keith asked suddenly, reminded of Shiro’s bizarre talent for art and sketching.

“Yeah, but the materials are expensive. It’s expensive being an artist,” he said, and gave Keith a little wink. “Which is why I stick to exclusively sketching.”

“When you’re at my house, you could probably use Allura’s supplies. She barely paints, but she has an entire easel with oils and acrylics,” he said, gesturing with his hands to the approximate size of the supply box. He could picture it now—it was wood, with a golden clasp in the front.

“Only if she lets me,” Shiro said. “I would paint your cabin.”

The inside of Keith’s throat swelled a little at the thought of home. That had been happening a lot recently, with the prospect of going home so near. He nearly forgot was homesickness was until times like these happened.

Keith let his forehead drop onto Shiro’s shoulder, and after a moment Shiro shook Keith a little by the arm. “Hey, what are you doing?” he whispered, as if they weren’t in a museum at all. Sure, there was the proper talk-quietly-museum-whisper, but then there was the sitting-in-bed-at-2AM-whisper when they didn’t want to wake up Keith’s neighbors— _as if they could hear them through the wall_.

“That’s so fucking nice,” Keith murmured back. “I want you to paint the cabin.”

Shiro let out a soft laugh and said, “Really?” He nodded silently against Shiro’s shoulder and pulled away to make sure he wasn’t doing something embarrassing, like crying.

He pushed his fingers underneath his eyes, which only prompted Shiro to coo at him adorably. “I would totally paint your cabin. _I want to paint your cabin_.”

“Stop it—”

“Let me paint your cabin, Keith.”

“ _Shiro—_ ”

Shiro was grinning like a maniac, pinching Keith’s sides as he laughed off the cinched feeling in the middle of his throat. He hugged Shiro around the middle and pressed himself against Shiro’s chest, so their heads rested next to one another. He could smell Shiro’s lavender-scented soap.

He never wanted anything more than to kiss Shiro at that moment. It was perfect— _he_ was perfect. Hell, he even wanted to paint Keith’s childhood home and befriend Allura, and stay the summer with him. He wanted to go to the same university as Keith; he wanted Keith to do well in school. He took Keith on a goddamn boat ride and Keith wanted to kiss him _so terribly it hurt_ —

He pulled back a bit, his arms still around Shiro, his chin tipped up to meet Shiro’s gaze. The bluish painting beside them peaked into Keith’s peripheral vision, and he could see the statues placed in the center of the room. He could feel the people in the museum, and knew there were people in the same room as them but he didn’t care one bit.

Keith leaned up a tad, and _felt_ Shiro’s quick intake of breath, as if preparing to lose it the second their lips would touch—

“Hey, it’s Shiro and Keith!” _Gods fucking damn you, Brent you absolute shit_.

As if Keith was even capable of controlling himself at that moment. His insides bubbled with rage and it seeped into everything—he wouldn’t be surprised to find singed sections on Brent’s dress shirt. He would have twisted his hands in the fabric of Shiro’s jacket, had Shiro not scampered away from Keith, shaking out his hands and quickly hiding them behind his back, facing Brent and… Brent’s girlfriend.

“Ooh, date night, how exciting,” Brent flourished, crossing the room to meet them. His girlfriend was a spritely redhead with far more self-control than what Brent possessed. Keith could tell instinctively that she knew when to leave two people alone.

Keith closed his eyes briefly and when he opened them, he was standing partially behind Shiro. When he looked towards the ground, he could see the bit of irritated red on the inside of Shiro’s wrists and palms.

“Hey Brent, Heather,” Shiro said, smiling like his hands weren’t completely on fire. “What are you guys up to?”

“Fridays are our designated date night,” Heather explained, tugging her hands around Brent’s arm. “I wanted to see the exhibits one last time before heading home for the summer. He mentioned that you’re heading up north with Keith, right? That’s exciting.”

They made small chitchat while Keith barely recovered. He wondered if he was as red as he felt. Or maybe he looked deathly pale—either way, he wondered if he looked as horrified as his insides made him out to be. By the time Heather managed to weasel Brent away from them, it felt like the damage was already done.

Shiro exhaled deeply, turning back to Keith. He could barely look up from the ground. “I can heal your hands. We just, um—I need water for it,” Keith said.

Shiro pulled his hands in front of him, between them, and Keith quickly tugged him by the upper arm towards the bathrooms. 

The entered the green-tiled room and stood under the white lights glaring above the mirrors. Keith started the water and gently pulled Shiro’s hands underneath the faucet. He hissed a little at the contact, but other than that didn’t complain about the pain. 

As Keith laid his hands over Shiro’s, shaking a little, he said, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine—”

“ _No_ , it _isn’t_ ,” Keith hissed. “I can’t even fucking kiss you right and it’s like every time I try I end up _hurting you_.”

The red was starting to diminish from Shiro’s palms when he pulled his hands free of Keith’s. The next thing he knew, Shiro’s warm yet moist hands slapped onto Keith’s cheeks. He yanked Keith’s chin up, so their eyes were in line with each other. 

Shiro’s eyes were wide, expression serious. “You aren’t doing anything wrong,” he said sternly, practically shaking Keith’s entire head with each precisely enunciated word. “Besides, you’re still learning as much as I am. Right now, I’m just glad you didn’t set an open flame on the museum. That’s a bit more difficult to fix than a broken statue of King Alfor.”

Keith would have laughed, but before he could, Shiro crushed his lips against Keith’s, and together they melted like fire against ice.

At the start, it was messy and uncoordinated. Their noses bumped against each other, their lips stiff and attention almost solely on the impossibly rapid beating of their hearts. After pulling away, Shiro opened his mouth to say something, but Keith tugged him in with a hand to his neck.

He tilted his head and melded their lips together again, and grazed against Shiro’s teeth with his tongue. Looking back on it, that probably looked stupid but it drove them crazy nonetheless. Running out of breath, Shiro let Keith back him up against the sink edge where the water misted against his spring jacket. Shiro’s hands dropped around Keith’s waist, keeping him close even when they parted, lips swollen and eyes wild.

“You—” Shiro started, now pushing one hand against the sink rim to support himself. “You—You actually sort of know how to kiss?”

With a huff Keith scowled at him and said, “Vaguely.”

At this Shiro leaned in close, so their foreheads pressed together, and he could feel the moisture of Shiro’s breath on his lips again. After a moment of gathering his thoughts, Shiro murmured quietly, “Am I dreaming?”

Keith wasn’t sure how he felt. Mortified? Shy? Either way the feeling didn’t suit him all that well. So he leaned back and shoved his hand into Shiro’s face. “Don’t be condescending, jackass. I still need to finish healing your hands, I’d suggest you don’t push it.”

Shiro laughed, but before he moved away from the sinks, he leaned in and kissed the corner of Keith’s mouth, as if to rub it in that they were on that level now. “Fine, I won’t push it.”

Within five seconds of Keith pushing Shiro’s hands under the water again, Shiro said, “I feel so enlightened now.”

“Shut your goddamn mouth now or—”

“Or what? You’ll shut it for me?” Shiro jested, and when Keith glared up at him, he was smiling smugly at the opposite wall. “In that case, I’ll just keep talking.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was worried that having them wait that long (basically 9 months) would seem unrealistic, but honestly with the way I've set up the entire story it's likely that Keith is demisexual and Shiro's a pushover so it's not like he'd pressure Keith into it. And once Keith builds a bond with Shiro (lmao WE HAD A BONDING MOMENT) he won't give it up, like, ever. He holds onto his bonds like he does his grudges, which (lmao) that explains a whole lot about Keith's reaction in the beginning of [_And Other Curious Creatures_](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8333458/chapters/19088635).


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I saw [a thing](http://starshardfragments.tumblr.com/post/159915922140/how-to-deal-with-street-cats) on Tumblr and I loved it so much. I didn't know how to adapt it at first, but then I remembered how I turned Keith into a cat. I've been meaning to add another short story to here, so... here you go! Cranked it out at midnight. It's 12:40 now. Help I have shit to do tomorrow.

Ever since the day Keith lost control, he desperately sought some solace in any and all books regarding cats. Lance spent more time with him, and they both knew it was because of his fear of Keith disappearing into cat form all over again. Even as he tried his best to remember what it was _like_ being a cat, he couldn’t. It suggested that his “humanness” was sedated during the time, but either way, Lance described him as being “a whole lot like you, but as a cat. In other words, aggressive and hard to catch.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” Keith bit out, and Lance gave him a dull look. _Right_. So apparently he lashed out a lot as a cat. It said a lot about his innate personality traits. Things that translated over into his feline counterpart.

“Shouldn’t you be more worried about the… energy-sapping?” his apprentice asked, standing over the table to observe what Keith was reading. It was a book on wild cats, and it played on a lot of the omens Allura warned Keith of throughout his childhood. 

Keith sheltered the book from Lance’s prying eyes, scowling incredulously at him. “That’s for another day. I’m curious as to the significance of being turned into a cat. There must be _some_ reasoning for it. It’s been proven that my animal counterpart _should_ be a raven, _not_ a cat.”

“You really believe in that stuff?” Lance asked, raising an eyebrow. “I thought familiars were just kind of… bogus.”

“They are _not_. They’re _helpful_. And if you managed to discover yours, you might have a greater connection to nature,” he countered, and glanced up to find his apprentice glaring at him. Clearly that was a sore subject. It didn’t take long for Keith to realize that Lance’s ego was far too large now after having rediscovered his abilities. He didn’t blame the kid at all, but… it was still annoying nonetheless. “Whatever. Don’t you have work to be doing?”

Lance huffed in annoyance, muttering, “Yeah… I guess…” before walking back towards the door of the apothecary. He hesitated before leaving, and said, “I’ll… see you for dinner at my place, right?”

“Yeah, sounds good,” Keith said, distracted by his readings. 

He spent a bit longer reading before discarding the book with a sigh. He dropped it onto a pile of all the other books, muttering to himself about cats, cats, cats. What was the point of turning him into a cat? He wanted to scream at Mother Nature for doing that to him. _It made no sense!_

He groaned aloud, throwing his arms down as he paced. He stopped, facing the stairs, and became further annoyed with himself for thinking of Shiro. It wasn’t that he was _angry_ with Shiro at all—he was just _doing his job_. He was looking for dragons, for eggs. 

_For eggs_.

Keith was reminded of the egg simmering in the cauldron that had been on the fire for weeks now. It was starting to grind on his nerves, shaving away at every last spec of patience he had for this. He spent _weeks_ journeying with Rover, when he never gets to see Rover these days. His dragon was gone almost as frequently as Shiro was. He wanted to _scream into the void_ of all this _bullshit_.

Still grumbling, he dumped in more water to the cauldron that sat on the embers. He stoked up the fire a bit more, adding more wood, before opting to leave the house. He’d go stir crazy thinking about Shiro and Rover and Pidge. He missed them too terribly to bother with sanity at this point.

Short, two-day visits, and then they’re off again. Keith spent so much time on his own these days that he wondered what it meant to even _be_ in a relationship with someone he never got to see or touch or _be with_. Silently he fumed over how lucky Lance was. Lance with his _perfect boyfriend_. Lance with his _perfect life_. Lance with his _perfect powers_ that brought life rather than destroyed it. 

Keith tried to control the heat building in his hands. He bunched them up in the fabric of his loose tank top, and scowled down either side of the street. There were people up and about, but one look at Keith’s murderous expression, and they steered themselves in the opposite direction. Annoyed with them all, but mostly himself, he turned on his heels and stormed off down the street and through an alleyway between two stone buildings.

Keith’s head felt foggy, heavy, bursting with these emotions he couldn’t control. He couldn’t bear not having them around. _This_ is why he didn’t want to get attached. _This_ is what it would come to—Keith, on his own, as always. Keith against _everything_ on his own. When it came down to it, it was just him against everyone he loved. His chest ached to think about the time he nearly killed them all—he could have crushed Shiro and Lance and Pidge and Hunk without breaking a _sweat_. He nearly killed him. 

He nearly killed Shiro. 

_You need to calm down_.

Keith breathed hard, panting as he clutched at his hair, his face. It wasn’t just now. It was every fucking night he spent alone these days. He hated going to sleep at night because he was all alone up there in that attic knowing that Shiro was somewhere else without him, with Pidge and Rover, and _Oh, we’re just going to be gone for another month. Take care of this dragon egg while we’re gone!_

No. Fuck you, Shiro. _Fuck you_.

Keith’s thoughts were broken by a sharp meow from below. 

There were tears in his eyes, hot and wet against his cheeks as he brushed them away to look down the stone ledge. There was a sandy walkway below, and on it there was a cat standing there, peering up at him with its multicolored eyes and its white-tipped ears. It was ginger in spots, striped like a tabby in others, with white as its dominant color on its legs and face. 

It sat, staring up at Keith before bellowing again. He brushed his wrists over his eyes again to see it better before glancing both ways down the street. No one was around to see him hop off the ledge and follow after the cat. 

Keith’s brain was still on fire as he followed the cat. It walked with such elegance, as most cats do, and it seemed to look back to check that he was still following before picking up the pace for a minute or two. It gracefully leapt over some stones, and off into the forest. Keith hurried to pick up pace, and found that he didn’t have time to think about _anything_ —not when he was following a feline through the trees and the jungle.

It climbed its way over fallen logs and lunged ahead. Soon Keith was sprinting to keep up, keep it in sight. There was something vaguely in his memory about wild cats, and cats that wanted you to follow them. It was something Allura once told him, about guardian felines who watched out for people as much as they harmed them. It was just a matter of following the rules—keeping them in sight—and waiting to see where they took you.

The cat waited for Keith atop a ragged tree stump. It was licking its paw when he approached, and leapt away before Keith could get too close. “For fuck’s sake,” he muttered under his breath, but was grateful that the pace had slowed to a gentle walk.

The time seemed to change faster than Keith anticipated. Dusk turned to night in a flash, and the light faded from between the trees. The white on the cat seemed to glow against the black night, and soon it came to walk beside Keith, looking up every now and then to assess Keith’s condition. They must have been walking for hours if it meant time passed, right?

Light soon came leaking between the trees and the vines, and Keith found himself hurrying towards it with the cat at his heels. He burst out of the forest out of breath, and wondering briefly if they just went in a complete circle, but this… this was different. This wasn’t his village. They weren’t _anywhere_ near where he normally lived.

“Where are we?” Keith demanded, looking at the cat. It continued to walk, all high and mighty, with its haughty chest out as it sat atop a brick hedge outlining the city. It smelled like… the ocean, but not where he normally lived. It was saltier in the air, stronger, and the breeze was cooler in temperature. He wished he would have worn a sweater had he known it’d be chilly at night here.

“So are you just going to sit there?” Keith asked the cat, and groaned as his guardian curled down to sleep. “Perfect. Just perfect. Will you stay there while I go and investigate?” Of course he didn’t get an answer. “Awesome. Well, I’ll see you in a bit. I’ll just be gone for a minute,” he told the cat. It was already sleeping.

With a sigh, Keith turned his eyes onto the city again. It was on the oceanside, he assumed, and didn’t realize how true this was until he climbed up a steep hill and came to stand atop a cobbled street, observing the ocean below. They were in a bay, with the buildings curving around the coast of it, and along the rocky edges, and the high, steep bluffs. 

Normally, he would have been more concerned about where the fuck he was, but at this point, he couldn’t care less. At least his brain was clearer than before.

He took this opportunity to investigate as he said he would. He walked around and stared at signs written in a language he never once saw before. He heard conversations in completely foreign tongues. He tried to talk to people, and was just given strange looks, or wide, confused eyes. Eventually, he came to a group of people and asked where the hell he was, and one of them seemed to gasp a little and talk quickly to their friends.

They pointed at him, speaking complete gibberish. “I have no clue what you’re saying,” Keith deadpanned. Then they were pointing away from him, making the shape of… a house? What was that? “I don’t know, could you draw it?” he asked, laying his hand out flat and making a writing motion with his fingers against his palm.

One of them shook their head, and reached out to hold his arm, guiding his away from the group. He was about to tear his hand free, but they seemed to be showing him something. They clearly had _something_ in mind, right? They wanted him to see _something_.

They walked for a ways in silence, and eventually the woman let go off his wrist so they could walk casually side-by-side. She’d point to things, just to show him artwork or open stores. Every building was bright and inviting, and colored in wild combinations of reds and oranges. 

Eventually she came to a wide building with dozens of windows, and gestured for him to go inside. She followed, and as Keith investigated the area, and the dim lighting inside, the woman went up to a worker and asked something—the slight inclination in her voice told as much.

But then he heard a name he recognized.

“Wait—Did you say—?” he started, paling as the worker hurriedly gestured for Keith to follow her. He didn’t get to say another word before he was dragged along again. 

His mind was reeling all over again. The cat—he just said a few minutes—it’d nearly been half an hour since then. But the name…

They came to a door, and the worker knocked on it. The layout of the building was a series of mazes, so he hadn’t expected it to be an inn at all until the door opened. Keith’s brain completely surpassed the fact that it was a bedroom and they were on a floor full of visitors, and the one who stood before him was—

“Sh-Shiro?” Keith stammered out, aware that both the worker and Shiro were staring at him as he said it. Like he was _surprised_ to find Shiro. He came to the inn, didn’t he? He should have known who he was looking for.

Shiro seemed to have just woken up, but his grogginess subsided as he realized who was standing in front of him, and it wasn’t just a random dream that woke him up in the middle of the fucking night. The worker spoke rapidly, and Shiro answered mutely, eyes locked on Keith’s until the worker left them be.

Not a second later, they lunged towards one another, Keith’s arms around his neck, cheeks growing damp all over again. “ _Keith!_ K-Keith, what are you— How did you get here?” Shiro stammered out, his voice shaky and uneven as he tightened his hold, his arms suffocating Keith’s chest. He didn’t even care.

“I-I don’t know. I don’t know,” Keith cried, hiding his tears in Shiro’s shoulder. “I just—I followed a guardian cat and the next thing I knew—”

“You— _What?_ ” he laughed, pulling away slightly to get a good look at Keith. He shook his head, smiling wide as he said, “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

Keith laughed, reaching up to brush away Shiro’s tears. His cheeks were rough and scratchy, and his tears dipped into the creases of his smile lines, and at his lips. Keith idly wiped them away, brushing the pad of his thumb of Shiro’s lips before lowering his hands, and letting his forehead fall against Shiro’s shoulder. 

“I don’t—I don’t think I can stay long. I didn’t even know guardian cats were a thing, but… if I eat or drink anything here, there’s no way I can get back to the town without fuckin’… _walking_ the whole way back,” Keith said, and let Shiro guide him into his room before closing the door behind them. “Where are we? I’ve never been here—everyone’s speaking a different language.”

“Yeah, Pidge and I are still learning the language. The owner said someone recognized your accent with how Pidge and I speak, and figured you should ‘meet us’ or something,” Shiro said, laughing. Keith joined in, unable to stop the moisture from building again. In a matter of seconds, Keith was sobbing all over again, hands pressed over his eyes as he tried to calm down. 

He and Shiro cried for minutes after then, until they were lying together on the bed, curled up against one another sobbing their eyes out. Keith tried to articulate how furious he was with Shiro, and with himself, but it never came out. Whenever he tried, his throat choked up again. Shiro stroked his hair the entire time, combing his fingers through it, familiarizing himself with the action he loved to do so frequently back when they were together in the same place, same time, same _fucking region of the world_.

“Wh-Where’s Rover?” Keith asked, lying beside Shiro with their heads on the pillows, eyes studying one another.

“He roams around. He doesn’t like the city very much,” Shiro confessed, smiling a little. “Pidge and I have been here for about a week. We’re heading out soon.”

“Really? Where are you going?”

“Following a shitty breadcrumb trail that leads farther south. We’re _far_ from Arus, Keith. We’re on a different _continent_. Rover would roam around and one time Pidge just hopped on over and told Rover to fetch me, and here were are. He brought us here,” he explained, brushing his fingers over Keith’s cheeks and jaw as he did so. 

Keith closed his eyes, breathing in shakily at the touch. “I miss you so fucking much,” he confessed, wincing as he did. He was going to cry again. “I-I’m so _furious_ with y-you—I don’t kn-know how to—”

“Sh… it’s fine, it’s fine,” Shiro promised.

“ _No_ , it _isn’t_. Why do you have to be all the way over here while I’m stuck at home?” Keith demanded. “I want to _come with you_.”

Shiro was silent as Keith tried to collect himself again. He ended by petting over Keith’s hair, and pressing a soft kiss to his forehead. “You’re here now, aren’t you? Visit me again, if you can,” Shiro suggested.

Keith hadn’t considered it. He wondered what the chances were, that his guardian cat would return him here. Was it all by happenstance? Was it on purpose? What was this bizarre connection to Mother Nature and cats at large? 

Keith sat up a little, rubbing his hands over his tender eyes again. “I-I don’t know. I’ll try again, but… I didn’t _mean_ to come all this way,” he confessed, staring across the room. His eyes were red and bloodshot. “I should probably get going. I don’t know how long the cat will wait for me.”

“I don’t want you to miss your ride home,” Shiro said, smirking as Keith turned to glare at him. “I’ll walk you there.”

“Okay.”

So Shiro helped navigate Keith back to where he came from. They held hands along the way, and Shiro explained their surroundings, talked about the city, about what he and Pidge were up to. He was in his pajamas the entire way, but he shrugged on a jacket before leaving the inn. Eventually they came to the outskirts of the town where the brick hedge was. The cat sat on one of the columns, watching them with its multicolored eyes. Its tail twitched when Shiro came too close, so he hung back. 

“Looks like I can’t go any farther than this,” Shiro said, smiling weakly.

Keith stepped up to him for a hug, which dissolved into a soft, gentle kiss before Shiro peppered them across Keith’s tear-stained cheeks. The air was cold against his bare arms, so Shiro offered his jacket. “Sounded like you had a long walk. Take it,” he ordered, and helped Keith pull it on and zip it. “Try again tomorrow. Pidge and I will still be here, and maybe we can visit Rover.”

“Yeah, that sounds good. But don’t wait up for me, okay? I don’t know if this will be a regular thing or not,” Keith confessed, and glanced over at the cat as if to say, _it’s temperamental and unpredictable_.

Shiro left one last kiss to Keith’s forehead before seeing him off. Keith didn’t glance back—he didn’t know the rules of this guardian cat specifically, but he didn’t want to push his luck. It walked alongside him up until the point where the pace picked up, and he was running again into the light of midday where he came from. When the time changed, and the warm weather returned, Keith began to see signs of the village, his home.

They came to the sandy track where he found the cat. It sat on the ground, as if to say that they had reached their destination. Keith rifled around in his pockets for something to pacify the guardian cat, and show his thanks. He came up with… a jar of pickled fish. 

“Um… I don’t know if you want this…?” he said, bending down and popping open the cap on the jar. The cat stepped forward, sniffing the jar, before reaching a paw in. It slopped one of the fish out and picked it up with its teeth. “Thanks for taking me with you,” he told the cat as it walked off. He wanted to say, “Come back soon!” but he didn’t want to push his luck any more than he already had.

_Mother Nature’s pretty weird_ , he determined.

**Author's Note:**

> Because I can't forget about what Keith did to refill his magick at the end of the [original book](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8333458/chapters/19088635). My theory is that taking magick directly from the earth source is like basically tying yourself to Mother Earth (hence the reason the person who introduced this idea is the way he/she is). So essentially Keith will forever be at the will of Mother Earth. And if Mother Earth wants him to be a cat, then so be it. 
> 
> I also think it'd make for an interesting concept. Keith could essentially be immortal this way--he could turn into a tree and live for as long as that tree continues to grow and then come back and be the same 20-something-year-old even if the tree he turned into ended up living for 120 years. Again, at the will of Mother Nature. 
> 
> Because I mean, turning back into a human would be a weird transition. Imagine how slow Keith would walk after turning back into a human after 120 years of being a tree. These are the things I think about.


End file.
